James Lovelock

James Lovelock is born in 1919. An independent scientist for more than forty years as well as an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1974 and was made a Companion of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003. In addition, he has received ten international awards for his work as an environmentalist; these included the Blue Planet Prize, Volvo Prize and Wollaston Medal from the Geological Society in London.

James Lovelock's most notable scientific work is the Gaia theory, now generally accepted under the name Earth System Science, and the discovery in l972 of the CFCs in the atmosphere and their subsequent global monitoring. He is the inventor of the electron capture detector (ECD), which first alerted us to the ubiquitous distribution of pesticides and PCBs. He has throughout his career as an environmental scientist supported nuclear energy as a preferred supplier of electricity. He is the author of five books and over 200 scientific papers.

James Lovelock is the author of more than 200 scientific papers, distributed almost equally among topics in Medicine, Biology, Instrument and Atmospheric Science and Geophysiology. He has applied for more than 40 patents, mostly for detectors for use in chemical analysis.

He is the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory) and has written three books on the subject: Gaia: a new look at life on Earth (Oxford University Press, 1979); The Ages of Gaia (WW Norton, 1988); Gaia: the practical science of planetary medicine (Gaia Books, 1991); and an autobiography, Homage to Gaia (Oxford University Press, 2000). His latest book is The Revenge of Gaia (Allen Lane/Penguin 2006).

He has been since 1994 an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford.